I had the pleasure of hearing Trevor speak when I attended the innovation day in Dublin last week. Don’t miss the chance to hear Trevor at any event. Well worth it. We got along great and I met him at Dublin airport on the way back.

Be sure to visit his site Baylis Brands - especially if you are creative / inventive type (and that’s EVERYONE as per Trevor)

I read about this issue on Russell Beattie’s post and agree you have a case here. The trademark filing gives it away. I also read both (moco and fiercewireless) and I agree with you that moco is not a generic name. The trends are ominoious ..

I am pleased to announce that Philip Otley – partner Accenture Communications, Media & High Technology (CHT) unit, based in London – will be speaking at the next event.

This event is also the launch event for Tom Weiss’s book – Mobile Strategies). The event is on April 11 5:30 onwards in the Emberton room in Waterstones Piccadilly. The full address is 203/206 Piccadilly London SW1Y 6WW. The nearest tube station is Piccadilly Circus.

The emberton room is on the sixth floor. There is lift access to the

fifth floor and then you have to walk up one floor (the sixth floor is normally not open to the general public).

Tom’s book site is at Mobile Strategies. Many of you know from previous events that Tom Weiss is a very engaging and knowledgeable speaker.

The unique aspect of his book is – it discusses an ‘insider view’ of

mobile strategies from a telecoms operator standpoint (Tom Weiss was Vice President Key Service Introductions at T-Mobile until August 2005, and was responsible for the launch of T-Mobile premium services across Europe, including T-Mobile EURO2004 campaign)

There will be a number of journalists/media in the audience alongwith

others interested in mobile applications.

If you have any questions or wish to attend please contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com

Philip Otley bio as per below

Note – on that day, you can buy the book at 20% discount at the event.

Kind rgds

Ajit

Philip OTLEY

Philip Otley is a Partner in Accenture’s Communications, Media & High

Technology (CHT) unit, based in London. He is part of Accenture’s

wireless industry leadership team, which focuses on creating value for and with wireless operators and other key industry players.

Philip joined the embryonic Strategic Services division in 1994 following his MBA studies in Switzerland. Over the following years he has delivered corporate and operational strategy programmes within CHT in the wireless, fixed-line, cable, equipment and software industries, in Europe, Asia and in Northern and Latin America.

Other strategy work with Accenture has covered client programmes within Financial Services, FMCG, Products and Utilities. Prior career

The UK market for broadband wireless services is set to become highly complex – and a possible proving ground for various technologies and business models – as the main holder of 3.5GHz spectrum, Pipex, shows its hand. Pipex holds the national license for 3.5GHz spectrum but, to date, has scarcely used the asset, leaving the PCCW-owned UK Broadband the only significant player in licensed broadband wireless services with its nationwide 3.4GHz holdings.

With UK Broadband slowing down its initially aggressive roll-out plans using its IPWireless kit (based on UMTS TDD technology), the UK has seemed ripe for shake-up, especially with spectrum trading soon to be permitted for the first time, and incumbent British Telecom expressing strong interest in WiMAX. It had therefore been speculated that Pipex would seek to sell on its spectrum, but now the UK’s seventh largest ISP has announced its own WiMAX trials, in partnership with Airspan.

UK competition

This could indicate that, like some major US ISPs like EarthLink, Pipex will look to expand its customer base and add portable services to its bundles through wireless delivery (mobility is unlikely to be an option in the near term, since UK regulator Ofcom has so far proved hostile to allowing this in the 3GHz bands, and faces heavy lobbying from UK cellco giant Vodafone to maintain this stance). This could make the UK market less attractive for UK Broadband, which may seek to sell on its licenses, possibly – if Ofcom permits it – to BT.

This, in turn, could create a two-horse race in licensed spectrum for WiMAX-type services for business and high end residential customers, which would also be joined by some of the players using unlicensed 5GHz spectrum, such as Telebria, which has just announced new funding, and Libera. The market could be further complicated when Ofcom opens up additional broadband wireless spectrum from 2006, and especially if it decides to allow non-3G technologies into the 2.5GHz band, previously earmarked, when it is opened up next year, for 3G expansion only.

Pipex, set up in 1991, was the UK’s first commercial ISP and now mainly serves business customers with 100 points of presence (including 20 point-to-multipoint broadband wireless PoPs). As a wireless ISP, it has the advantage of readymade backhaul arrangements and established reputation for corporate class service levels. The question is whether it will stick to its business market – also targeted by Libera – with wireless or use the lower cost infrastructure to relaunch its efforts in the consumer space.

Fixed broadband wireless is in the early stages in the UK. Like most European countries, it experienced a bubble of interest when 3.5GHz licenses were awarded at the end of the last century, but few real services ensued. According to the Department of Trade and Industry, coverage is limited to only a few regions, with 45 per cent of the residential coverage in London and the South East, and 30 per cent in the Midlands. Regulator Ofcom estimates that there are 5,000 subscribers in licensed bands and a further 2,000 to unlicensed services (there are also 6,000 two-way satellite internet subscribers).

As in other countries, providers are divided between addressing underserved rural areas – as Telabria and Langreen are doing, as well as BT with its Alvarion-based pilots in remote areas of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and targeting businesses with lower cost alternative to T1 leased lines. This has been the approach of Libera, which aims to cover 75 per cent of UK businesses by the end of next year and recently launched in London.

Both business models can be served by unlicensed equipment – rural areas because there is little congestion or interference; businesses because operators can afford to set up base stations on high buildings to gain line of sight. For urban or suburban consumers, though, licensed bands will probably be essential because of the interference risks and the need for line of sight in 5GHz. Hence the increasing value of the 3.4-3.5GHz bands, whether Pipex and UK Broadband choose to keep or sell them, and the likelihood that Pipex might seek to use wireless to re-enter the residential sector.

Pipex strategy

In its 2004 annual report, Pipex indicated its reawakened interest in the 3.5Ghz-4.2GHz spectrum it acquired in 2003 along with Firstnet Services, one of the broadband wireless operators that rode the wave of the 1999-2000 boom and then failed. It points out that this band is newly interesting because of the potential of the WiMAX technology and, as part of a duty to finalize the fair value of the license in 2004, estimated this at £5m. In the provisional acquisition balance sheet of Firstnet prepared for the purposes of the 2003 financial statements this license had no carrying value attributed to it.

“In assessing the value of this asset at the acquisition date the Company has taken account of the significant progress, particularly in terms of specifying WiMAX global standards, that has been achieved in the post acquisition period and of the uncertainties present in the exploitation of new technology,” says the report. “The value now attributed to the licence at the date of acquisition is £5m and this has reduced the goodwill arising in Firstnet by the same amount. The licence value is being amortized over 20 years.”

The Airspan technical trial will last until February and will be focused on a base station at the equipment maker’s testing facility in Stratford-on-Avon in the Midlands, and a demonstration house about 1.2 kilometers away without line of sight, fitted with Airspan’s EasyST indoor WiMAX-ready modem. The equipment will work in the 3.6-3.7GHz band. The aim is to see whether a DSL-like experience can be achieved with WiMAX, and success will lead to commercial trials. Future trial phases will assess the performance of other WiMAX CPE types, including laptop cards and handheld devices for both fixed and nomadic applications.

All this reinforces the idea that Pipex is mulling a consumer service. Another motivator is voice over IP, which will also be tested in the trial. Pipex CEO Mike Read said: “WiMAX is an exciting new opportunity for Pipex and this test will help determine how we offer wireless broadband services to our customers using our licensed spectrum. Combined voice and data offerings using WiMAX will enable PIPEX to deliver differentiated products in addition to our existing services.”

Currently, online mapping companies are one of the biggest success stories on the web. Google maps could change all that. Leaving aside the fact that googlemaps is backed by the power of google – the biggest advantage of a web 2.0 service like googlemaps is the power of mashup . Housingmaps is the best example of a mashup based on googlemaps and craigslist . And there are many more on the way at mashupfeed

Currently, the major online mapping players like multimap and streetmap (in the UK) are the destination of choice to find mapping information including directions. But for how long? As more mashups appear – we see services like google maps becoming central to our web experience. Where will that leave today’s mapping stars? If no one ‘mashes’ them – how useful would they be in the near future?

Since I am involved significantly with web 2.0, I was asked this question last week – Can you recommend a marketing person who understands viral marketing?.

I know many good marketing people – but I don’t believe that there exists a marketing person who understands viral marketing

The reasons are

a) The basics of viral marketing are easy to get – the wikipedia entry on viral marketing is a good start – and is just about all the generic knowledge you need for viral marketing . In that sense, you don’t need to pay anyone to know about the generics of viral marketing. In fact, almost by definition – the fundamentals of viral marketing must be simple and must be known to most people(else if it were by some esoteric, secret mechanism – the application would not spread virally anyway)

b) Viral marketing is a function of product design. The products that have succeeded virally – have done so because they were truly superior products(technically and functionally). They are radically different from the existing set of products – hence their demand can’t be gauged by traditional marketing means like focus groups or by asking the potential customers.

Skype is probably the best example of this. Skype is a product which provides a superior user experience due to its excellent technology – leading users to recommend it to others

Thus, my advice is – you can get to know all you need to know about the generics of viral marketing from the public domain. You should then start with the product design team and work from there. If you already have a product and then retrospectively try to think of how to ‘viral market’ it – you have lost it already!

Thus, no marketing person can tell you much about viral marketing (since it’s a function of product design) and the information the product design team needs to know – is already available in the public domain

I love to see visionaries succeed .. as the dust from web 1.0 settles down and we enter a more mature market of web 2.0 – lets take a minute to revisit this email – which I first read a few years ago in the dark days of the dot com bust.

It makes funny reading – but not sure what the author is doing – but Jeff Bezos is still laughing his usual trademark laugh – all the way to the bank

Enjoy! But let’s not forget that critics are dime a dozen – and a group of critics never accomplished anything in themselves ..

Network Solutions, Inc

505 Huntmar Park Drive

Herndon, VA 20170

April 1, 2000

Mr. Jeff Bezos

President and Chief Executive Officer

Amazon.com, inc.

P.O. Box 81226

Seattle, WA 98108-1226

Application for Renewel of amazon.com domain name

Dear Mr. Bezos:

We recently received your application for renewal of the “amazon.com” domain name for your company, Amazon.com, inc. Unfortunately, we must reject your application, and assign you an alternate domain name instead; for the reasons outlined below.

As you are no doubt aware, the .com top-level domain is intended for use by for-profit corporations. Many such corporations are registered with Network Solutions, and this policy is unchanged.

However, it has come to our attention, as evidenced by recent SEC filings on behalf of Amazon.com, inc., that your company has yet to turn a profit. As such, Amazon.com, inc. no longer qualifies for a domain name in the .”com” hierarchy. However, based on your financial performance, you do qualify for membership in the .”org” domain; which is intended for non-profit organizations. Unless there are any objections from you or your representative, Network Solutions will assign Amazon.com, inc. the new domain name “amazon.com.org.” (We would have assigned the shorter “amazon.org” domain, but that domain is currently assigned

to a website for the San Fransisco lesbian community.)

To be frank; we were gravely concerned about the amount of money that amazon.com, inc. has been losing. We were seriously considering assigning a name in the .”gov” domain based on the current rate that your corporation is losing money. However, as Amazon.com, inc. is a publicly-traded corporation, and policy reserves the .gov domain for organizations that are in fact governmental agencies, it was determined felt that this would not be appropriate.

This change in your domain name registration only affects your Internet domain name as assigned by Network Solutions; and no way impairs your right to continue to do business under the trademark of “Amazon.com.” If and when Amazon.com, inc. becomes a profitable enterprise; we will be happy to reconsider granting you once again the domain name “amazon.com,” assuming it is still available.

This change shall take effect within the next thirty (30) days, at which point the “amazon.com” name will be decomissioned. You have until then to notify customers and business partners. Effective immediately, and for the length of the thirty-day transition period; both names wlll be registered to Amazon.com, inc.